Todayyyy it’s Sunday! The day of rest. The day of the week
where you literally are required by the world to expect nothing of yourself.
And then even less. The day when putting clothes on… that’s optional. Normally
I work on Sundays, but due to my lurgy tonsils I’m not allowed to serve food!
So I’m on a holiday from going to work. Cue a mini rave n PARTAY.

And this isn’t the only reason that today is special. Also,
this Sunday is the last day in November. There are 3 reasons why this is
spectacular…

1) Our advent
calendars begin tomorrow. Mine is a Frozen calendar and I’m very excited to
open the first door. And eat chocolate.

2) Tomorrow the cleaning rota flips to a new month and we
all switch responsibilities. I’m sad not to be in charge of stairs and hallways
anymore (total piss-take), but it’s nice because everyone’s tidying their zone
ready to hand it over. So the house is LOOKIN’ GOOOOD.

3) We’re putting our Christmas decorations up! With just ten
days until flat Christmas, we’re going to go for it tonight and we’re going to deck
the halls!

In such high spirits I decided to treat the house today and
bake a banana bread! This is always cause for celebration and some light
Hayley-worship, so I never mind the cost or the time taken to prepare it or
anything. They donate elderly bananas. I love to bake, and I love to eat banana
bread as much as my flatmates do. All is good.

For a while, my flatmates having been calling for me to try
out a special new banana bread recipe that they found on Pinterest, so I caved
to demand and checked it out. It took some converting of ingredients from US
cups to UK grams, and it was a bit of a botched job in the kitchen after a
major oat spill and some blender troubles, but this has turned out really well.
SO WELL. IT TASTES LIKE HEAVEN. YOU HAVE TO DO IT.

Here’s how…

1. Preheat your oven to 180˚C and use some kitchen towel to
wipe a little oil around the edges and bottom of a loaf tin in order to grease
it the vegan way.

2. Peel your bananas, place them in a bowl and mash them to
a pulp.

3. Put your oats into a blender and pulse to a fine crumb
until the oats look almost like flour.

4. Add all your remaining ingredients MINUS THE CHOC CHIPS
to the blender. Splash a little tapwater over the top so you mix isn’t too dry
and blenddddddddddd.

ChefBeHere Top Top: If, like me, you only have a small
smoothie machine not a proper blender, halve all of your ingredients and blend
half first and then the other half afterwards.

5. Pour your loaf mix into a mixing bowl and tip in three
quarters of your choc chips. Save a quarter for now.

7. Smooth the top of your loaf so that it’s surface is even
and then sprinkle your remaining choc chips over the top of it.

8. Safely transport your loaf into the oven and leave to
bake for half an hour.

9. After half an hour, test the middle of the loaf by
stabbing it with a knife. If the knife comes out clean then remove your loaf
from the oven. If it has mix on it still leave your loaf for another five
minutes and keeping checking it every five minutes until it’s baked all the
way through.

10. Leave your loaf to cool in its tin for twenty minutes.
Then run a sharp knife around the edge of the tin and either shuffle your loaf
onto a cooling rack to cool fully, or slice your loaf up and feed it warm to
hungry flatmates! Tuck in!

And you should be feasting on something that looks like
THIS!

Up close and personal with my loaf :P

Plated! Not for very long… Muahahahaha...

Do you love it? Loaf it? Has your life been changed? I know
mine has. Peanut butter goes with banana so well there just aren't words. I have no words.

And what do you think of the veganness of the recipe? I did
not mind the lack of flour, butter or eggs. I didn’t really notice. Didn’t miss
them whatsoever. What wasn’t there? I could literally be vegan if it meant I
could eat this loaf everyday forever. It’s my eternal loaf.